So since you still have all the mining power available to you, how much will it cost me to have a stress test against my instance of ecoinpool that I set up? I only want an hour or 2 of lots of speed to see how well it works.

I'm working on a central config that would allow me to do this pretty easily (giga probably has a better setup in this respect) But given the number of rigs I'd have to change over in my present setup it would be a lot of work if you needed a lot of hash power. How many gh/s are you thinking?

I dunno, I just wanted to turn it up until either my virtual machine crashed or my internet connection went down. I wish p2k was back with some updates though.

another bonus for the winner in taking an instant BTC cash prize option instead of mining for a week is that it gave him the potential to sell those 300 odd coins (haven't checked prob 220 - 250 but same principle) @ > $5.10 then short 10:1 on Btca with the $ equivalent of 3,000 coins margin, buying back in today < $4.9 for a clear $600 profit on the short, so now holding $2,130 or 435 coins, one third more in just 1 day after the spreads say, so that even BTC bears may want to play

I kind of agree. It was neat that it was different than just BTC but kind of sad it changed right at the end. BitLotto is different though. I don't offer an prize and sell way more tickets than the prize is worth. I just always pay 99% of whatever people put in. Offering an amount at the beginning to raffle off would IMHO be a rip off. The suckers at the beginning would play but everyone else would wait till the end to see if the number of tickets sales is higher or lower than the prize amount. If it's lower it's a good deal and the operator ends up losing BTC. If it's higher than the money is better spent at BitLotto for the odds are better compared to the prize. Who knows how many people would really pay attention though.